


Transformation

by Lirillith



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Esper Terra, Gen, Magic, Magic Meta, Mid-Canon, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-05
Updated: 2006-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terra's second encounter with the Esper in Narshe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transformation

Before they came back to Narshe, Terra had remembered how beautiful the snow was, blanketing the ground, drifting down on them like feathers or ash, but she'd forgotten the cold. She'd forgotten snow getting into her gloves and melting, she'd forgotten soaked cuffs and cold, damp socks and wind cutting through her like a blade. Even when Celes healed her injured side and leg, she could barely feel the warmth of the spell.

"Is she all right?" someone asked - Edgar, maybe - and she shook her head rapidly, as if to clear it, and stood up.

"I'm fine," she said. "Did they all retreat?"

"The survivors did, yes," Celes said. "Narshe troops are sweeping up the last of them."

Edgar tugged her hood up over her head. "Are you cold?" he asked.

"Freezing," she admitted.

"We'll be inside soon," he said, smiling at her, then turned to greet Banon as he approached. "Where's the Esper?" he asked.

"I hope it's all right," she heard Locke say, from further off. "I want to see it." They were all moving again, so she started walking, too, hoping the effort of climbing would help her warm up.

She did feel warmer when they reached the peak, but despite the effort - she felt like she was sweating, under the layers of clothing - her feet and hands and the tips of her ears were still so cold they hurt. Up here eddies of snow blew through the air, and the wind was stronger than it had been down below, and louder.

It was there, directly in front of her, nameless and alien and terribly familiar. Feathered wings, a scaly body, and a head like a dragon's - did all Espers look like this? The ice block seemed smaller, though the Esper was still fully covered. She remembered, now, seeing it in a cave, and seeing blue light. There had been voices then, and there were voices now, men's voices, but the only sound she could hear clearly was the roar of the wind in her ears. She felt light-headed, and her skin was tingling, the cold as distant now as those other sounds and the people making them.

Something by her chest was hot, almost burning, and she undid the first button on her coat to pull the pendant up. It was glowing, and as she watched blue sparks danced over it. A flake of snow melted against it with a hiss - it should have been a tiny sound, but she could hear it, even over the howl of the wind. And there was a voice, saying something. Saying her name. She knew the voice. Locke. "Terra?" he said, and she thought it wasn't the first time he'd said it. She looked up, and blinked until his face was less blurry. "What is it?"

"No," she said, urgently. He shouldn't be there, but she realized, distantly, that he was worried. She ought to say something, she ought to tell him to go, but he seemed to be gone now, and the blue light was there again. Cold, she thought, but she didn't feel cold. There was that tingling, and sounds seemed strange and distorted. "What is this?" she asked the Esper. "What am I feeling?" She saw brief images of fallen men, their armor rimed with frost, of buildings encased in ice and of snow falling on green fields. Memories, not hers, never hers. The light was crackling around her, and when she looked down her gloves seemed to be gone, or changed. Her hands looked different, longer and narrower, and after the light played over them again they had claws, and fur with an odd sheen to it.

"What's going on?" she whispered, feeling cold again, but inside; her stomach was ice, her heart frozen in her chest. She could feel the strange prickling all over her skin, and another sensation that wasn't really pain but certainly wasn't comfort. Power, but she didn't know where it was coming from, or why it was doing this to her. From the Esper she got only the sense that it recognized her, that it didn't understand why she was there. "Tell me what's going on! Tell me who I am!" she shouted, but even her own voice sounded strange now, like an animal's howl or a bird's cry.

There was more power coursing through her than she'd ever felt before, more than she knew how to stop. She took a step toward the Esper and into the air, two more on the air itself, and realizing what she was doing, she took a few running steps on the air and leaped. She was rising, she was still and suspended over nothing, and then she fell. But then she was rising again, farther and faster than anyone should. She didn't know how to get back down, but she couldn't remember why she should, either. Whatever she was, she wasn't a human, she wasn't the same as they were, and she didn't belong with them. She didn't belong anywhere.  



End file.
